Trending: 06604 is a fountain of youth

Published 11:51 pm, Wednesday, July 17, 2013

From left, Chelsea Deitch, 22, of Bedford, NY, Lindsey Tanner, 22, of Mount Kisco, NY, and Joanna Coco, 21, of Pound Ridge, NY, enjoy a meal and drinks outside Black Bear Saloon during Alive@Five at Columbus Park in Stamford on Thursday, July 11, 2013. They say they try to make to Stamford a few times a month for shopping and entertainment.
Photo: Jason Rearick

Justin Elliott, 24, sat with his fiancee Tuesday afternoon, casually sipping a margarita from a pint glass at Barnum Publick House on Broad Street in Bridgeport, waxing poetic about the city's reawakening.

"Honestly, downtown Bridgeport has been `up and coming' for a while, and I think that it's finally starting to turn around," said Elliott, who lives across from Barnum at the Read's Artspace, a former department store that was recast into lofts for artists 70 years after it was built.

"When you tell anybody in Connecticut you live in Bridgeport, they're like, `Oh, Bridgeport,' " he said, feigning shock with a dramatic gasp. "But when you live right here, it's like the surrounding blocks are really nice. It's mostly corporate buildings that people work in. There are a bunch of nice restaurants, and this place is opening a new restaurant two doors down."

Walkability and access to bars and nightclubs fits the bill for Elliott, who commutes to Manhattan, where he works in retail.

The lower corner of Connecticut has never been known as a hot spot for the young and trendy. With 10.99 percent of southwestern Connecticut's population between ages 20 and 29, according to data from the 2011 American Community Survey, the area's 20-somethings are significantly outnumbered by a grayer demographic, such as folks older than 65, who account for 13.5 percent of the area's population.

But there are pockets where the 20-something population is reaching numbers that command attention, such as Elliott's 06604 ZIP code, in downtown Bridgeport, where 19.5 percent of the residents are in their 20s, which is second only to downtown Stamford's 06901 area in southwestern Connecticut. And 06604 is significantly younger than the nation as a whole, with 13.8 percent of Americans in their 20s.

The top five ZIP codes in southwestern Connecticut for 20-somethings begin at Stamford's 06901, before Bridgeport's 06604 at No. 2, Stamford's 06902 at No. 3, and Bridgeport's 06608 and 06606 at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

"Bridgeport has been a burgeoning city for some time, and it's had fits and starts," said Terence Beaty, director of new homes and land division at Prudential Real Estate. "But it's usually very creative people who are able to develop and populate an area like that first, and then you see more development with the money that's created. Bridgeport's coming, you'll see."

Elliott doesn't see it as a question of "wait and see." The city is coming alive around him, he said. And he's not the only one who's noticing.

A couple of blocks up, Tony Jordan, who manages the pizza joint and bar Two Boots, commented on just how many hot social spots have opened in the area, drawing attention of the roughly 5,600 20-somethings who call the 06604 ZIP code home.

"None of this was here five years ago, with the exception, I guess, of Two Boots. And it's definitely a district now with different demographics than there was seven or eight years ago," he said, adding that he believed the draw will only increase. "A lot of us are invested and we believe that Bridgeport is finally on the upturn. There's a lot of potential here and I think people are finally seeing that."

Kayla Esteves, a 23-year-old bartender who slings shot glasses at nearby Bare, said the awakening is only beginning.

"With the apartments that are opening up down here, there's a younger crowd coming in," she said. "It's not quiet anymore, it's not like a dead town here ­-- it has more livelihood."

That's something Beaty believes will make the area even more vibrant.

"Young people like to socialize with each other and be near other younger people," he said.

That's one of the reasons Stamford is also seeing a renaissance of young people in areas such as its downtown 06901 ZIP code and the large urban redevelopment area of Harbor Point, which falls in 06902 and has drawn in about 500 new 20-somethings in the past couple of years, according to Harbor Point Chief Operating Officer Ted Ferrarone.

"There are people coming from all over the place to live in Harbor Point," Ferrarone said. "People are literally coming out of the city to come here . . . that whole stretch of waterfront has never been accessible by anybody before, really and it has been amazingly popular."

Stamford's 06901 ZIP code is the third most densely populated ZIP for these young residents of the 237 ZIPs with at least 1,000 people in the state, behind Mansfield's 06269 ZIP code, which contains the University of Connecticut's main campus, giving it a somewhat misleading No. 1 ranking with 50.4 percent of residents in their 20s. The second highest is New Haven's 06510, which borders Yale and boasts a massive amount of residents in the undergraduate age bracket.

In the top 15, there are three southwestern Connecticut neighborhoods. But in the bottom 15, there are 10, with the Rowayton section of Norwalk's 06853 ZIP code coming in as the second least popular place for 20-somethings in all of Connecticut, with 2.5 percent of the population in that age bracket ­-- or about 95 people. Darien's 06820 is the fourth-least popular, Sherman's 06784 is the fifth-least popular, followed by Weston's 06883 at No. 7 and Redding's 06896 at No. 9 and New Canaan's 06840 rounding out the bottom 10.